Hearing Death at the Movies

Film Music and the Long History of the Dies Irae

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by Alex Ludwig

Type

Studies

Subject

Technique > Music

Keywords

music, death

Publishing date

2025 (May 01, 2025)

Publisher

Palgrave MacMillan

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Hardcover • 265 pages
6 x 8 inches (15.5 x 20.5 cm)

ISBN

978-3-031-78794-2

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Book Presentation:
The Dies Irae is a melody that composers of film music have employed in hundreds of films, ranging from Metropolis to The Shining, and Star Wars. Itis a product of more than 800 years of musical transformation, finding purchase in a variety of musical environments, including the church, the concert hall, and the cinema. Based on a corpus of nearly 300 films, Hearing Death At the Movies models two new ways of thinking about the Dies Irae. First, it identifies three different versions of the melody, each of which signifies a different function of film music. Second, it traces the semantic shift of the Dies Irae from its religious roots to its secular perception as a symbol of death. This study of the most widely-used theme in film music history will change how you listen to movies.

About the Author:
Alex Ludwig is Associate Professor of Music at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

See the publisher website: Palgrave MacMillan